Our staff is made up of Research and Instrument Analysts (RIA) and Research and Instrument Scientists (RIS), which have Bachelors, Masters or Ph.D. degrees in Astronomy or related fields. Their duties are typically focused on manipulation and interpretation of data (i.e. images, spectra, detector/sensor readouts) using science software tools such as STSDAS/IRAF and IDL within a Unix operating environment. For example this might include cleaning up raw/noisy images into a finished product suitable for scientific/calibration/engineering studies; performing scientific measurements of those images; preparing interpretation of those results through comparison to predictions made by scientific models that may also have been produced by the RIA/RIS with available software tools or code that they may write; create presentation quality charts and images for documentation, presentation, or publication of the processing and analysis of the data.

Further activities involve the development and writing of software code, from small scripts to large custom data processing or analysis routines. RIAs/RISs are also involved in preparing observing proposals and in preparing reports documenting calibration results as well as in presenting those results at science and calibration meetings. Occasionally RIAs/RISs take responsibility (part to full) for observing runs at ground based telescopes.

STScI scientists interested in requesting RIA or RIS support for their research projects can send e-mail to the RIAB Lead (Max Mutchler). The request should include the following specific information:

• project title, and abstract or brief description
• program ID and grant number
• role of the RIA/RIS; any prior relevant experience expected/preferred?
• requesting any specific individual from the RIAB (see staff webpage)?
• time allocation and FTE estimate, e.g. 20% for 12 months
• start date; is there flexibility for start date?